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This two-semester course introduces first-year students to the essential tools of practicing law: analysis and argumentation, research, predictive and persuasive writing, client interviewing, oral advocacy, and professionalism. The course emphasizes that good legal writing, like all good writing, is plain, clear, and concise.
The course meets in small sections of about 25 students each. Students learn by assuming the role of lawyers representing clients in realistic situations, and they perform hands-on research using the law library's extensive collection of both print and electronic materials. Faculty members with strong backgrounds in legal practice provide extensive, individualized feedback, while students also develop the tools to critique and improve their own work independently and to work collaboratively.
Faculty: Laura Daghe; Sophia Goodman; Robert Parrish; Cynthia Reichard.
"To be a good lawyer, you must be a good writer. And to be a good legal writer, you must have both a good understanding of law and a good grasp of principles of writing."
Helene S. Shapo et al., Writing and Analysis in the Law 3 (5th ed. 2008).
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